Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Wants To Break Up Ticketmaster / Live Nation After Taylor Swift Chaos
New York Democratic Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez called for the break-up of Ticketmaster as well as parent company Live Nation after Tuesday's Taylor Swift ticket debacle.
The Congresswoman took to her Twitter page to call out the company for having a monopoly on tickets and the live event space. Her solution? Tear it all apart.
TAYLOR SWIFT PRESALE WENT THE WORST WAY POSSIBLE
On Monday, a select number of people were chosen via the new Ticketmaster Verified fan program (which is essentially a lottery) and given presale ticket access.
However, turmoil erupted Tuesday as Ticketmaster.com crashed before the presale even began. Some users' passwords weren't accepted, and people waited hours only to be booted out and have to start over.
"Ticketmaster" and "Swifties" was trending on Twitter as the fanbase went scorched-earth on the ticketing website. Literally thousands of people reported technical errors. It was an absolute mess. Ticketmaster had no choice but to acknowledge that there was a problem:
Eventually, the whole entire presale was paused because of "an unprecedented demand" of visitors. Capital One's presale scheduled to take place at 2 p.m. eastern, has been moved to Wednesday.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) says that Ticketmaster and Live Nation have a monopoly on the concert industry. (Photo by Nathan Posner/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
SHOULD GOVERNMENT STEP IN?
Ocasio-Cortez played the role of a politician in jumping on the anti-Ticketmaster bandwagon. She sees the heightened passion on the matter.
People are ANGRY. And if there's one group that you don't want to make mad, it's the Swifties.
Meanwhile, parents are furious at Ticketmaster as their children came home from school and asked if they got Taylor Swift tickets only to have an absolute meltdown when they were told "no."
Not an ideal situation!
Demand for Taylor Swift's concert tickets crashed Ticketmaster. (Twitter)
It's unclear how AOC intends to take down Ticketmaster and Live Nation. Although many on social media were rightfully upset at Tuesday's rollout disaster, others disagreed with the Congresswoman's tweet.
TICKETMASTER SCREWED UP BIG TIME
I am not a big fan of Ticketmaster (mainly because I also missed out on tickets) but I don't think AOC's suggestion of government intervention is the correct way to approach it.
Does AOC think Ticketmaster is happy with how things went today? It was their biggest moment to shine and they failed terribly. I don't think anything could have went worse for them than it did. Clearly the company didn't want this to happen. They have thousands of people that hate them right now.
Ticketmaster realizes that they screwed up, and will have to adapt moving forward. What happened today can't continue.
Tickets for Taylor Swift's Eras Tour go on sale to the general public on Friday.